


sepulture of youth

by drivingnotwashing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Episode: s02e02 Everybody Loves a Clown, Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27549115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drivingnotwashing/pseuds/drivingnotwashing
Summary: The first time Dean attends a funeral, he’s three years old, it’s the middle of January and soon he’ll be four, a big boy, a big brother to be because Mom has a baby in her belly and she’s standing next to Dad in a pretty black dress that hugs the bump where Dean’s little sibling is. The second time he goes to a funeral, he's burying his mother. He doesn't want to talk about it, but he's pretty sure it can't get worse than this.He's proven wrong again and again.or: five funerals where Dean doesn't cry + one time he does (with a twist).
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	sepulture of youth

**Author's Note:**

> a quick story about grief and dean's shitty self-esteem with some biblical imagery and some angst because it's apparently all i can write?? call me grief writer or some shit.
> 
> warning:   
> \- this story mentions very briefly the start of a relationship between sam and dean when sam was 16, i didn't tag underage because it's just one line but it's there.   
> \- john isn't abusive but he's also not the best parent, so this can be read as slightly john critical. sorry john fans.  
> \- jessica is mentionned but very briefly so i didn't put her in the character list.  
> \- i feel like i have to say that i love dean because i keep hurting him in everything i write, I LOVE DEAN, I JUST THINK WHUMP IS COOL, IM SORRY
> 
> anyway, enjoy!

The first time Dean attends a funeral, he’s three years old, it’s the middle of January and soon he’ll be four, a big boy, a big brother to be because Mom has a baby in her belly and she’s standing next to Dad in a pretty black dress that hugs the bump where Dean’s little sibling is. He never learns the name of the man they’re burying, all he knows is that his mother is holding his hand tight in hers while Dad is standing in front of them, wearing a fun costume and a hat. There’s music but nobody is dancing and there’s the American flag on the coffin, Dean recognises it because his babysitter, Lydia, has a shirt like that and when Dean asked her what it was, she said it was their flag and so he drew it for Mommy when she came back from work because he wanted her to smile and tussle his hair like she does every time she’s proud of him.

He made one for Dad too, and he drew them in front of the flag, Mommy with her long blonde hair, Daddy with his dirty blue coveralls, Dean with his fire truck and the baby, hidden in a blanket, because Dean’s not sure what the baby will look like yet and he didn’t want to make a mistake. Dad had smiled too, and he’d raised Dean high in the air, twirled him around like he weighed nothing, which was probably true because Dad is very strong and Dean is a big boy now but he’s not as big as Dad.

He watches his father, he can’t see him very well because he’s too short and Mom can’t hold him while she has the baby in her belly, but Dad is standing very straight and he’s not looking at the coffin, or the little girl who is crying loudly in the arms of a redhead woman wearing a big dark hat, his Dad is looking at the sky.

“Mommy,” He tries to be very quiet because his parents told him it was important to be  _ res-pect-ful _ and that since he didn’t know the man they’re burying, he can’t cry or scream like the little girl, he has to be strong and brave, Dad said, he has to be a little man to make his father proud. “Where will he go now? The man?”

His mother’s hand is warm in his and she doesn’t look sad when she looks at him, her eyes are green like his and her nose is pink from the cold, Dean’s must be too but he’s wearing a coat and hat and his breath doesn’t make small clouds when he exhales. 

“He’s going to Heaven, baby, in the sky.” She’s smiling softly and Dean wants to believe her because his Mom knows everything, she’s the smartest person in the world, but it doesn’t make sense. The man is underground, they’re putting dirt on his coffin, and Dean also knows this word because he asked Lydia where they put dead people and she said they put them in big wood boxes and Dad said they were called coffins or  _ cas-kets.  _

He frowns, he doesn’t want to tell Mommy she’s wrong, but that doesn’t sound very true and Dean likes to know things, he likes when his Mom reads new books to him before bed and he gets to ask questions, it’s his favorite part of the day, with eating lunch and talking to the baby in Mommy’s belly.

“But he’s in the ground,” Mom doesn’t seem to see the problem and that upsets Dean a bit, it’s so  _ obvious.  _ “He can’t go to Heaven if it’s in the sky.”

She lets go of his hand then and Dean thinks he said something wrong, he shouldn’t have told her about the sky, she clearly didn’t know and now she’s mad, he’s gonna cry and he can’t cry here because he didn’t know the man in the ground and it wouldn’t be  _ res-pect-ful _ . But then, she’s holding his quivering chin, and he looks at her, she doesn’t seem angry, not one bit.

“You know the stories I tell you about the angels and the Holy Spirit?” He nods, those aren’t his favorite stories, the angels scare him a little, because they can see and hear everything and that gives Dean shivers because he doesn’t want people to watch him when he cries or when he poops, that’s just not cool. “Well, when they put your body in the ground, you change and you become like an angel.”

“Do you get wings?” That does sound a lot cooler.

She snorts but it’s quiet, “No, not really, but your soul, you remember what I told you about souls, how they’re everything we are inside? Well, they become very light and then you can fly to Heaven.”

That makes even less sense than the dirt on the coffin, Dean is very confused now, “But you stay on Earth?” 

“Only your body, baby.”

“But,” He frowns even harder, he can feel the way his nose scrunches up. “But that’s  _ you _ .”

She tussles his hair now, like she does when she’s proud and that makes no sense! None at all! Because Dean doesn’t  _ get it.  _ “I’ll explain it when you’re older.”

He crosses his arms and puffs an angry breath, he’s not going to scream or throw himself on the ground like he does sometimes at the supermarket when Dad doesn’t want to buy more Lucky Charms but he’s not happy and he doesn’t look back at his Mom for the rest of the ceremony. He’ll hold her to her promise, when he’s older, she’ll explain again and this time he’ll understand and maybe one day he’ll be the one to explain it again to the new baby. That thought makes him a little happier, he doesn’t pout when they leave the cemetery and go back home and he doesn’t even complain when Mom makes him finish his spinach. He can’t wait for the baby to be here, there is so much Dean knows, some much he’s learned and wants to teach to his little sibling. He can barely wait.

Dean doesn’t want to talk about the second funeral he attends, he’s not sure he has much to say about it. Where do you start, when you’re four years old and you’re holding your baby brother in your arms and your father is no speaking, he’s not crying, he just stands near the coffin and the priest says Mom is in a better place, that she is the newest flower of God’s garden and Dean wishes he didn’t understand now, wishes so badly he was still naive and obtuse. 

There is no Heaven, no angels watching over them, nothing to protect them, nothing to protect  _ her _ . And they’re putting her underground too, they’re burying her when she was supposed to be flying and no, none of it makes sense, it never made any sense. It was just charitable lies, he knows it now, he won’t ever forget it.

But Sammy doesn’t know.

Sam is just a baby, sweet and pink and soft and wide-eyed, Dean loves him so much, it scares him a little. He’s always loved Sam, since the moment Mom and Dad brought him back home, but he used to love Sam as much as he loved Mom and Dad, there used to be a place in Dean’s heart for the three of them, a core harmony. But now, Mom is gone, she’s in a slick white coffin and Dad is barely there, his body is here but maybe Mom was right when she said the soul could leave because Dad seems empty. And so Dean has Sam, and Sam has Dean.

“It’s okay, Sammy.” He presses a kiss to his brother’s sleepy face, right over the few tears that have slipped from Sam’s tired eyes to his plump, red cheeks. “I’m right here.”

And he always will be, no angels, no God, no Holy Spirit could take him away from his baby.

The third time Dean goes to a funeral, he’s sixteen years old and it’s the first time it isn’t a burial. It’s a hunter, one of Dad’s regular partners whose luck finally has ran out. He got his neck snapped by a ghoul before getting his insides torn out. It was a mess, Dean had gone to the scene just a few hours after their father had returned from the hunt, he hadn’t particularly wanted to, but someone needed to clean the place up, get the body and erase the hunters’ traces. Dad’s ankle was sprained and he was a little pale, which meant it was either Dean’s turn to sponge up blood and guts, or Sam’s, and yeah,  _ no _ .

The pyre is decent enough, Sam is the one who built it while also cooking their last box of Mac n Cheese because their father needed to eat something with his whiskey and painkillers and Dean is so thankful that he can count on his brother with things like this. Sam can be a brat when he wants to, he whines about the most futile shit, but he always shows up when it’s serious, he listens to Dean and doesn’t rise to some of their father’s careless,  _ drunk  _ comments. 

“Dad gave the instructions,” Explains Sam when Dean wonders loudly how the fuck the kid even knows what a pyre is supposed to look like. “I just put the branches together, it’s not that hard.”

“Take the compliment, squirt.”

Sam gives him a lopsided grin that makes Dean forget the blood and horror he just witnessed, his baby brother has that power over him, those huge hazel eyes are like damn tranquillizers, basically magic if you ask Dean. 

He nods towards the cabin where they’ve been staying it for the past three weeks, “He’s up?”

“No,” Sam’s shivering already, he’s wearing Dean’s old jacket over a t-shirt and two flannels but Montana’s weather is brutal and Sam is thin and frail, which is strange because Dean was already a stocky kid at twelve, he guesses they’re just growing differently. “He knocked three pills and finished that bottle of Jim Beam and now he’s out. Do we wait for him?”

Dean weighs the pros and the cons, he doesn’t think his father will care much that they torched Todd Mitchell’s body without him, they weren’t buddies, just hunting acquaintances but his Dad’s been a bit of a jerk recently and Dean knows that if he starts to scold them again, like he’s been so fond of these past few months, there’s a high probability that Sam will seriously try to knock a few of his teeth loose, the brash motherfucker.

Still, Dean doesn’t wanna leave the body in the Impala for longer than he has to, it’s gonna start to smell, the bowels are exposed to direct air after all, and leaving a body outside like this is just asking for a few coyotes to take a bite. “Nah, pretty sure it’s gonna take hours to burn, Dad will wake up to see the end of it.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Sam doesn’t sound afraid, Dad’s not violent, he doesn’t hit them apart from when they’re training in hand in hand, but he’s a mean drunk and he says some pretty fucked up shit. Sam always takes them so at heart too and now he sounds a little sad, a little angry, that mix of adolescent melancholic annoyance that Dean finds distressing. 

He shrugs, “I’ll deal with it.” And in the morning he does, because Dad’s ankle aches and his hangover must be pretty intense, and he tears them a new one for lighting a fire in the middle of the night, because it’s too visible, it’s too dangerous, people will know they’re here, people will track them down.

“Sir,” He cuts into his father’s speech because Sam’s hand around his spoon is slowly making a tight fist and Dean’s not cleaning a second bloodbath this week. “We couldn’t leave him like that, it wasn’t right.”

To be quite honest, he doesn’t give half of a shit about Todd Mitchell’s carcass, Dean has seen death quite a few times now and he feels no grief for this man he barely knew, but he guesses that Dad will be kinder if he thinks this was moral duty. Dean’s right, breakfast ends peacefully and when they pack their bags later on, his brother is humming Black Sabbath under his breath with a smile.

This was Dean’s favorite funeral so far, he hopes he can spend all the next ones with Sam too. 

He’s twenty-six years old for his fourth one.

November in Palo Alto is suffocating, the air is filled with dust and heat and Dean’s suit is thick and warm on his clammy skin. The dress pants are too long but the jacket is too small around his shoulders, it’s one of Sam’s suits, one he would have probably worn for his interview for that Law school if Dean hadn’t rolled in his new, perfect life and torn it all to bits. Burned it to ashes, literally. 

The cemetery is packed with people, family, friends and college students who didn’t know Jessica Moore but who heard of the tragedy and just wanted to show their support. Everywhere Dean looks, someone is crying into a tissue and it makes him uncomfortable, he doesn’t fit in this painting of mourning. He’s never cried at funerals, he’d never been able to, he didn’t cry for his mother because Sam was in his arms and he didn’t know how to protect Sam and cry at the same time. He’s certain that if he ever confesses that to someone, he’s going to get locked up in an asylum, but he’s used to it now, he knows that he’s a freak, he knows that the way he cares for Sam, the way he loves his brother is insane. It’s fine, Dean deals.

He wishes he could hold Sam now too, wishes he could grab a hold of his hand, wishes he could wrap his body over his brother’s and shield him from the inquiring eyes, from the blazing sun and from the guilt. Sam isn’t crying, he’s standing there, so very still, an image of grace and statuesque pain, all marble agony and golden skin. Grief shouldn’t be so beautiful, but Sam has always been Dean’s idea of beauty. 

Jessica’s parents are a few feet away, her mother is shaking with sobs so loud Dean thinks it will haunt him until the day he dies, her father is holding his wife with one arm and hugging his youngest daughter, his  _ only  _ daughter, with the other. 

Twenty-two years ago, Dean had repudiated Heaven, had renounced God and the angels, because no divine force would have let this happen to him, to his mother. He’s older now, he knows better, this is no holy design. This is demoniac, evil, monsters and darkness and it’s horrible, it’s disgusting and it makes him want to scream but it is also tangible. No divine force would have let this happen to Jessica Moore, to his brother, but a demon would and Dean is going to find it and kill it.

He’s going to fix it, because Sam’s all he has and now, he guesses with a sort of morbid clarity, he’s all Sam has left too.

When his father dies, Dean doesn’t think about funerals. He doesn’t count it, he forgets to mark it down mentally like he’s done since he was three because his father is dead and he told Dean to kill Sammy.

_ “You take care of your brother, you hear me?”  _ And yes, yes, of course, he always has, he always would.  _ “And if you can’t save him, you do what’s right, son, you do what’s right and you kill him.” _

He should mourn, he should cry and feel like his heart has been ripped apart, but he’s angry, so angry he wishes he could kill something, bleed it dry and watch it shrivel. Sam is by his side, he’s sniffling and sobbing and he wants to tell him to stop, because Sam shouldn’t cry for someone who signed his death warrant. Sam deserves better and Dean finds himself lacking in every single way that matters.

“Before he,” His brother fidgets, cheeks wet and shining under the light of the fire and the moon, “Before, did he say anything to you? About anything?”

It’s the way Sam’s voice goes soft and understanding, it’s the way he accepts that their father’s last words were for Dean, it’s the way he stands so close to Dean, so very close, so warm and so sweet.

Dean will ruin him, he’ll ruin them both because he’s a liar, he doesn’t get it, he’s not sure he ever did and he doesn’t deal, he’s not dealing with it, doesn’t want to. He’ll turn to anger and violence, because he’s his father’s son in the worst ways and he’s forgotten how to be his mother’s angel. He’s tombs and graves, fire and ashes. He’s never known how to fly, he shouldn’t have told Sam that he could teach him, foolish children promises.

“No,” He won’t look at Sam, might never be able to again. There are tears in his eyes but he wipes them away before they can fall. “Nothing.”

“You gotta get up, son,” He doesn’t know who is speaking, he’s not even really sure where he is, Sam is in his arms and he’s rocking him back and forth, like he did when he was a baby, like he did when Sam first dreamed of monsters and knew they were real, like he did when Jess died and Sam couldn’t sleep, like he died when Sam’s visions started getting clearer, like he did his whole life. Back and forth, back and forth, always and forever.

“My Sammy, my Sam,” A hand on his shoulder, trying to lift him, but he can’t stop rocking Sam, can’t wake him up, because Sam is sleeping, Sam’s just sleeping and he’s fine, he’s just fine, he’s sleeping.

He gets in the house but he’s not sure how, he doesn’t remember walking, he doesn’t remember carrying Sam, but they’re here, on a ratty mattress that smells like soot and old sweat. But it’s okay, he’s had worse, he has Sam, everything is okay when Sam is here. 

When he was twenty years old, Sam kissed him and Dean learned that love tasted like cereals and coffee. When he was twenty-one, Sam took his hand and placed it on his beating heart and told him it was his, that it would always be his and Dean believed him. When he was twenty-two, Sam said  _ I love you _ and left with nothing but a duffle bag and Dean’s hopes and dreams. 

Bobby’s too kind, he tries to feed him, tries to keep him alive, as if Dean has a reason to live with, it would be funny if Sam’s cooling body wasn’t staring right back at him. 

“Something big is going down, end of the world big.”

“Well, let it end!” And he means it, God, he means it. If the Yellow-Eyed Demon knocked on their door right now and offered to bring back Sam for the price of the world, Dean would let it all burn. He’s selfish and immoral and he’s in love and he doesn’t care, he can’t care if Sam isn’t breathing.

“You know,” Dean tells his brother, his  _ dead  _ baby brother, “When we were little, and you couldn’t have been more than five, you just started asking questions. How come we didn’t have a mom? Why do we have to move around? Where’d Dad go when he’d take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you.” He wants to laugh but it comes out as a sob, “Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don’t wanna know. I just wanted you to be a kid, just for a little while longer.” 

A kid with shaggy brown hair and eyes that never lost their light

“I always tried to protect you, keep you safe. Dad didn’t even have to tell me, it was always my responsibility, you know? It’s like I had one job, I had one job, and I screwed it up.”

Sam’s skin is so pale and grey, he used to be golden; it twists something in Dean so deep he thinks he could cry himself to death. And isn’t it ironic? This is the funeral he’ll cry to, the one exception that confirms the rule.

“I blew it,” He runs his fingers in Sam’s hair, “And for that, I’m sorry.” He’s still so soft under Dean’s hands, he’s still here, his body is  _ here _ . “I guess that’s what I do, I let down the people I love. I let Dad down and now, I guess I’m just supposed to let you down too.” The angels and the Holy Spirit could fly to Heaven, and they can maybe take his brother’s soul, but Dean won’t give up.

“How can I? How am I supposed to live with that?” He won’t, he refuses to and in the end, it’s easy to sell his soul, it’s easy because it was never his in the first place, it always belonged to Sam and if that means that he has to trade it to Hell to get his brother back, he will. Because Dean doesn’t cry at funerals, never has and never will. If Sam’s not dead, he doesn’t have to bury him, it’s so easy when he says it, it makes sense for the first time in forever. And who cares about eternal damnation when Sam hugs him back, when Sam laughs and eats and breathes, who cares about Heaven when paradise is a boy with golden, lively skin and hazel eyes that are brighter than any flame. Sam might fly to Heaven one day but not yet, Dean won’t allow it, and as for him, it’s okay. 

He’s dirt on a coffin, he’s known since he was three.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are much appreciated!!
> 
> -dnw


End file.
